Sunday, August 9, 2009

Time to finally start this thing!

So clearly it is taking me a while to catch on to this blogging thing. As you can see, I first started this blog quite a while ago and have written NOTHING since then. I've been having so much fun lately following some of the great blogs of my friends, that I decided to write a little on here. There has just been so much happening in our lives lately that I wanted to share it. In fact, considering that I started this blog in November of last year, let me go through some of the major events that have happened since then:

Matt's new job: This is a big one. After a crazy process of tests, interviews, background checks and polygraphs, Matt was offered a job with the Seattle Police Department. He started the academy in February and graduated on June 24th - big day, very exciting... but really only the beginning... Since then, he has been doing more training with his department.

Last night was his first night out on patrol with his new field training officer. The way I understand this part of the training is that it is kind of like student teaching was for me. You are doing everything as a real officer, but you are under the leadership of another, more experienced officer who is basically grading you the whole time. It is pretty nerve-wracking. We are jumping right into a crazy lifestyle change, too - night shift in the south precinct. It is about noon right now and Matt is sleeping. He got home at 5 in the morning. It was kind of tough last night trying to go to sleep without him. Luckily, in about a month he will get to try day shift in the east precinct with a different field training officer.

As for my job, I am still searching for a permanent teaching position. I spent the last school year subbing in the Everett and Mukilteo districts and to my surprise, I loved it. It was really fun to teach a different class every day and to try out different grade levels. I finished up the school year with a great first grade class that I taught for two months while their teacher was on maternity leave. Having a long-term position at the end of the school year made me realize how much I want my own classroom again. Unfortunately, it is slim pickings for teaching jobs this year. I had an interview earlier this summer that didn't lead to a second interview :( It has been tough getting those "rejection" emails from some of the jobs I've applied to. It looks like I will start out the new school year as a sub again. I actually am really thankful that I can even sub again because most districts aren't even hiring new subs. Whew! Luckily I have already been hired as a sub in Everett and Mukilteo.

The other big event for us is our new house! We have been looking for the past few months with our good friend and amazing realtor, Casey Price. We have seen some houses we've liked, but nothing that we loved. The advice we've gotten is that we will "just know" when we find the right house - and sure enough, it happened just like that. We had been looking in the North Seattle/Shoreline/Edmonds area and hadn't looked farther north. One day I saw a house online that looked cute, but it was in Everett. I thought it would probably be too far north for us, but I drove by anyway. I just fell in love with the neighborhood and called Matt right away. We looked at it with Casey later that week and just knew that this was a great house. We reached an agreement with the sellers on a good price and have been moving forward with the process of buying it! We are hoping to move in in early September. So excited!

Well, I think that's enough updating for now. Let's see if I can keep up my goal of adding a new post every week...